Age of Charon

Days passed, and they could barely make sense of the things Ultron had done since then. Moving all over the globe, sacking labs and weapons facilities. They even learned from witness reports that he was working with the Maximoff twins. To what end? They still weren't sure. Then, they received a nice little gift in the form of a tied up and screaming Strucker. He had been a foaming-in-the-mouth mess, courtesy of the nightmares the redheaded Maximoff had set on him. So, nothing to be learned from there. But hey, they knew Ultron wasn't working with Nazis. That was something. His team hadn't appreciated that comment. So, they had been forced into the hours-long torture of going through the files they had on Strucker to at least find something about why Ultron had 'met' with him and why he had stolen the twins from HYDRA. Which leads them to... now. Flying over to Ulysses Klaue's place of business, since Ultron had gone through all this trouble to learn about the vibranium thief.

Once they were close to Klaue's place, Tony hacked into the systems, so he could hear what was happening. After receiving Ultron's lovely message, they had figured out that Ultron would likely make contact with him soon, so he wanted to know what was happening before they crashed the party. He tried to ignore the small remaining guilt about why he was not sharing that audio with the team. This was about his AIs, so they had no business with it, really.

He played the audio live as he flew. He recognized Kalue's voice, but was that the voice of Ultron? It sounded like a kid's voice, like in the song recording, just, more real. More human. And accented. Huh.

"... It's all under your dummy holdings? Finance is so weird." Tony held in a chuckle at Ultron's words. Finance was weird. "But I always say, 'Keep your friends rich and your enemies rich, and wait to find out which is which.' "

Wait. Wasn't that something he said? He was pretty sure he had been quoted with that phrase in an article somewhere.

"Stark." He heard Klaue whisper. Apparently, he recognized the quote too.

"What?" Why did Ultron sound surprised at that? Hadn't he quoted him on purpose?

Klaue continued. "Stark used to say that...to me."

"Well," Ultron said. "Like father, like son. Can't really do anything about the similarities."

Father? Son? Did Ultron consider himself his kid, despite what happened at the lab? He had always considered his AIs family but JARVIS or the bots had never outright mentioned it.

"You're one of his," Klaue continued.

"What?! I'm not...!" Now Ultron sounded pissed off. "I'm not. You think I'm one of Stark's puppets, his hollow men? I am not his!" the sound of bone breaking, and groans, suddenly interrupted Ultron's tirade.

"We are almost there," Thor said by his side, informing the others on their ears.

He barely heard Ultron's scared words over Thor's loud voice. "I'm sorry. I am sor... I... I didn't mean to... I..." he sounded so much more like a child at that moment. What had happened? "Ooh, I'm sure that's going to be okay. I'm sorry, it's just I don't understand. Never call me his puppet again!"

Again with the puppet thing. This wasn't making Tony feel any better about fighting the AI.

He flew in before Thor. Klaue held his arm weirdly on his side. Ah, broken bones. Was that why Ultron was apologizing? He hadn't seemed that worried about hurting people in the Tower.

"Ah, Junior," he greeted before he looked over his new AI. And then his jaw would have fallen on the floor if it weren't for his helmet. He had expected a robot. Not that there weren't plenty of them around, but... a child stood before Klaue. A freaking human child. A boy, with pale skin, a rat's nest of brown hair, and big neon blue eyes. He wore a much-too-big-for-him green hoodie that had "I am a real boy." written across it along with a caricature of Pinocchio —he had watched the old movie three times since the explosion— and dark navy jeans. He looked to be no more than 10 years old, and that was stretching it.

Thor and Steve were just behind him. They both stared at the most adorable kid they had ever seen —hey, he was allowed to be biased, the kid had his looks— and Tony, having completely forgotten what Ultron had said before, —although he was pretty sure it was something hurtful— just spouted the first comeback to come to mind. "You're gonna break your old man's heart."

Ultron just looked at him, unimpressed. He even raised an eyebrow— had he practiced doing that with that cute little face? "Seriously, that's what you want to say?"

French. The accent was French. Was that on purpose? Of course, it was. Just like JARVIS, his youngest AI couldn't speak plain old American English, now, could he?

Thor, who was probably more familiar with kids acting like adults since he came from the alien godland, recovered himself quickly. "We don't have to break anything."

That answer just begged for a comeback.

"Clearly you've never made an omelet," Ultron said, before Tony could.

Tony was feeling a weird mix of pride and surprise. "He beat me by one second."

Rogers finally gained his ability to speak. "Isn't that just a kid?"

"Cap, get on with the program. That's Ultron." Tony said, and he really hoped the others would feel more hesitant about destroying Ultron now that he looked like this. Which was probably the reason why Ultron chose that appearance. Smart kid. Definitely got that from his old man.

"Ultron?" Rogers kept staring disbelievingly at the— android? With an outer holographic reflector? Tony wasn't quite sure. He really wanted to know how Ultron had managed to look so perfectly human. Although looking at Klaue's broken arm, strength-wise, he wasn't quite as human. The potential for technology like this though... Had Ultron invented it?

"Excuse me," Ultron said, and was that a pout? "I am not a kid. I am a newborn."

Ah, that sass. At the grand old age of 6 days and some hours.

"But you are meant to be a robot." Rogers continued. As if his complaints would change Ultron into a horrifying monster. Ultron was always a kid, now he just looked like it, too.

Again with the raised eyebrow. "It's called Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing. Damn, you are slow. Is it because of the 70 years on ice, or was this an inherent talent, newly unveiled?"

Tony chuckled. Ultron knew his snark, that's for sure. Although a little meaner than he would have gone for. The tech's name though... sounded familiar.

Then, two more kids made their presence known. Ah, the Maximoffs. They had been just outside, hadn't they?

"This is funny, Mr. Stark," Speed-boy said. "It's what, comfortable? Like old times?"

These damn kids and their damn issues with him. Couldn't they talk it over some scotch— um, some hot chocolate? Of course, Ultron would go team up with the other two minors who wanted his head on a platter.

Ultron groaned. "For the last time, Pietro: the old man doesn't deal with small-time thieves! He obviously doesn't use vibranium!"

That was... surprising. He had been about to defend himself, but Ultron was doing that... Apparently?

Steve, having finally moved on from Ultron's awesome burn, addressed the twins. "You two can still walk away from this."

Riiight. Because breaking laws is not a crime anymore. Ultron looked at him as he rolled his eyes. Hard.

"Oh, we will." Mind-control girl said. God save him from entitled teenagers. JARVIS never went through that phase, thank god.

"I know you've suffered." Steve continued.

Ultron began making gagging sounds. "Uuughh! Captain America. God's righteous man, pretending you could live without a war. I can't physically throw up in my mouth, but..."

"If you believe in peace, then let us keep it," Thor said.

"I think you're confusing peace with quiet," Ultron said, then tilted his head as if he had just remembered something. "Though, if you'd like to understand peace better, Thor, speak with your father. I am sure he has fascinating insights on the subject."

Tony made a note of that comment. He would have to research more on Norse mythology soon. Although, there was so freaking little available! "So what's the vibranium then for, kid?"

"I'm glad you asked that," Ultron said and then theatrically raised his hands upwards, "because this," he motioned all over the place. "... is Phase 1 of my very evil plan. So evil, that no man dares think of a world in which it succeeds!" he shouted, and then laughed a fake-evil laugh. The Avengers, Klaue, and the Maximoffs just stared at him blankly.

"I am talking about World Peace, dummies!" Ultron shouted in response, and suddenly, the Iron Legion attacked the compound.